December 6, 2007

Something really strange happened in my house today. Have you ever owned a beta fish? They're really great pets. They don't smell. They don't eat much. They're kind of cute and they don't produce much excrement. What more do you want? Mine doesn't do tricks but some people tell me they can. This one, "Blue Thunder" does display some predictable behavior and that makes him a little interesting. For example, when I come into the kitchen in the morning he doesn't get too excited until I turn on a specific light. That's his sign it's time to eat and he starts swimming around in a very exaggerated fashion. Then I give him a couple of beta pellets which last him all day. I've had him for two years and quite frankly, I've grown attached to the little blue guy.

Okay, I forgot to feed him this morning. I was in a hurry. This evening I came home and he was lying listlessly on the bottom of his aquarium. I thought perhaps he was dead and even though I would have felt bad for essentially starving him to death I probably wouldn't have shed a tear. After all, he's just a fish that came to me in a plastic Tupperwear container with holes poked on top.

I tapped on the glass and Blue came alive. Trust me I was glad to see that. The ignoble toilet burial of a fish is nothing to look forward to. Their little limp bodies whirling around...never mind that. He started thrashing around trying to get to the top of the water for his food. There are a bunch of plants and he had to maneuver himself around them to get there and by the time he arrived at the top he was in a state, let me tell you. It was kind of amazing to observe.

Many of you may not realize that beta fish breathe oxygen through their mouth and what looks like little nostrils. They don't use gils. I sprinkled a couple of pellets on the top of the water per ususal protocol. Blue charged at them. And then suddenly he was still. Absolutely still. His little fins stopped moving. He was looking up at me and it was then I realized that in his vigor to get at that food, he had inadvertently sucked up a pellet into one of his little nostrils. He had a stunned look on his little fishy face. Like "what the hell happened here?" How could his little fishy brain comprehend this situation?

He remained paralyzed and began to sink. I thought surely a Siamese fighting fish wouldn't go out like this. Surely he could puff a bubble of air out of that nostril-like thing and rid himself of the pellet. It looked like what my nostril would look like if I stuck a cocoa puff in it. Well, if I had a cocoa puff stuck in my nostril I wouldn't just lay there and die. I would snort it out. Why couldn't he rub it against something? No, he was too stupid to do that. His little primitive brain was no match for the pellet. My beta would die.

Well, I went to work. I got out my little fish net and scooped him up. And then I reached into the water with my index finger and thumb and applied a quick pump to his thorax. And that pellet came shooting out of his nostril like a cannon ball, and off he swam.

So the moral of this story is: fishies need Heimlich maneuvers too.